Microsoft's Steve Ballmer has plans for more hardware — Steve Ballmer: 'This is one of two or three big moments in Microsoft's history' — Microsoft's chief boss has confirmed he plans to release more devices. — Steve Ballmer told the BBC: “Is it fair to say we're going to do more hardware?

MacBook Pro 13" Retina Display Late 2012 Teardown — Apple just expanded their Retina family. The newest bundle of joy: a 13" MacBook Pro with Retina display. It's small, it's sleek, and all those pixels are pretty darn snazzy. What goes best with a new gadget? Yep, you guessed it: kittens.

Marissa Mayer Makes First Yahoo Acquisition: Stamped — Yahoo has acquired the company behind 1-year-old mobile recommendations app Stamped, its first since ex-Google exec Marissa Mayer became CEO of the company in July, Mashable has learned. — The acquisition was purely for talent …

Exclusive: Huawei partner offered U.S. tech to Iran — (Reuters) - An Iranian partner of Huawei Technologies Co Ltd, a Chinese company that has denied breaking U.S. sanctions, last year tried to sell embargoed American antenna equipment to an Iranian firm, according to documents and interviews.

Pinterest pierces Top 50 most-visited sites list — Though Google still reigns as No. 1, a ComScore study shows that Pinterest joined other social networks for the most frequently visited sites in the U.S. for September. — ComScore released its list of Top 50 most-visited Web sites …

Torrent Site Webhost Ordered to Pay “Piracy” Damages — For years Dutch anti-piracy group BREIN has tried to find out who is behind the SumoTorrent website. — After being initially hosted in the Netherlands, the site moved to Canada to escape BREIN's jurisdiction, but it later returned as a client of hosting provider XS Networks.

Samsung Nexus 10 manual surfaces ahead of Google announcement — Google is rumored to be launching at least one new Nexus phone and tablet on Monday, including a Samsung-built tablet codenamed “Manta.” Now, a pair of images have surfaced on Korean site Seeko, showing what looks like a manual for a Samsung Nexus 10.

Audio Comes to Flipboard on Android — Starting today, Flipboard fans on Android smartphones can add a soundtrack to their flipping. That's right—Flipboard on Android now has audio. — This means that you can now enjoy everything featured in our Audio category in the Content Guide …

All eyes on Apple's earnings — Lowered expectations after Tim Cook's Tuesday bombshell — FORTUNE — On Monday, Wall Street's consensus for Apple's (AAPL) fourth quarter report — scheduled to be released today after the markets close — was for earnings of $8.85 on sales of $36.32 billion.

View later service Pocket gets a crisp and capable Mac app at last — Today, view later service Pocket gets a beautiful Mac app to compliment its apps for Android, iOS and the web. It offers a capable translation of the Pocket paradigm from its other incarnations to the Mac design language without giving up its own unique flavor.

The Beatles' Apple Corps Logo is now a Registered TM of Apple — On 5 February 2007, Apple Inc. and Apple Corps announced a settlement of their trademark dispute under which Apple Inc. would own all of the trademarks related to “Apple” and would license certain of those trademarks back to Apple Corps for their continued use.

Judge steps down in patent lawsuit filed over Apple's Siri — In a new lawsuit that claims Apple's virtual personal assistant is infringing on already developed patent technology, the judge recuses himself because of “interest” in the tech company. — A recently filed lawsuit over Apple's Siri …

Education, Technology “Journalism,” and the Apple PR Machine — I wasn't planning to write anything about Apple's media event yesterday. I tuned in to the livestream, but when all the announcements were made, it seemed clear to me that nothing that was revealed on stage in San Jose was that significant to education.